On September 11, 2001, millions around the world sensed they were witnessing a turning point in modern history, as they watched two airliners ramming into the Twin Towers of New York, killing thousands. They also knew they had to look far away from the American shores for the larger story.
Many had seen it all coming in the mass-destructive truck bomb explosion of 1998 in the U.S. embassy in Kenya's Nairobi. If the incident led to the inclusion of Osama bin Laden in the “most wanted” list of the United States, his pursuit in post-9/11 Afghanistan has been punctuated with suicide bombings with equally heavy tolls in Kabul. India, placed earlier in a different category despite the July 2008 attack on its embassy in Kabul, is treated as yet another victim of terrorism of the same virulence after the Mumbai tragedy of November 2008.
This volume covers a wide spectrum of countries, with Afghanistan, Kenya and India chosen for case-studies of the ramifications of 9/11 in a specific area. The terrorist strikes have affected the three countries internally as well as externally, especially the relations — their own and those of the Third World they represent — with the U.S.-led West. The impact is more pronounced in ties linked to the flow of aid from the world's rich to the poorer sections of civil society.
Risky venture
A critical study of the post-9/11 developments, the book by Jude Howell and Jeremy Lind — both from the London School of Economics — is the outcome of their risk-laden journeys across the three countries. Their attempt, however, is to point to the dangers of the changed developmental aid policies.
Howell and Lind hardly claim that such aid ever came without “strings”. It has “always been used in foreign policy as a tool”, especially during the Cold War. What is new is “securitisation of aid”. This has been the refrain ever since George Bush unleashed the ‘War on Terror' on an unprepared world.
The authors quote Bush from his foreword to the U.S. National Security Strategy 2002: “...September 11…taught us that weak states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong states ... poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels within their borders.” This may be greeted with a wry smile by those who remember the terrorist networks the U.S. built in Afghanistan under drug warlords to fight the Soviet forces. British Prime Minister Tony Blair carried the theme further. Witness this: “The threat comes because, in another part of the world, there is shadow and darkness...where a third of our planet lives in poverty...where a fanatical strain of religious extremism has arisen...and because in the combination of these afflictions, a new and deadly virus has emerged. That virus is terrorism...” (From Blair's speech to the U.S. Congress in 2003)
Consequences
The book brings out some broadly similar consequences of the policy pursued in diverse contexts under study — especially for democracy, the Holy Grail of the “anti-terror” crusaders. One consequence was the U.S.-inspired legislation designed to combat ‘terrorism' of a certain definition at the cost of civil liberties. India remembers the furore over the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which the far Right advocated fervently. The authors tell us also about a similar political controversy over the ‘Suppression Terrorism Bill' in Kenya.
Another consequence was the ‘War on Islam'. “The de-politicisation of Indian civil society … had clear implications for...the rights of disadvantaged groups. This was poignantly revealed in the weak response of voluntary sector agencies to the conflagration … in Gujarat in 2002,...compared to their responses to the…earthquake in Kutch in 2001.” In Kenya, the “Muslims have come into the gaze of donor agencies post-9/11,” making them uneasy. And this “unease relates to … the perception of a ‘war on Islam'.” As for Afghanistan, the purpose of the aid-receiving agencies is not “building democracy” but “stabilisation objectives of foreign powers through enhancing the legitimacy of the state.”
The authors argue that the Barack Obama administration has belied hopes of a change in this scenario. They blame it on the “thick web of regulations, policies, laws, institutional arrangements and bureaucratic practices.” Do we need another study to expose the social forces behind the tangled web of the ‘War on Terror'?
